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Bolstered GOP eyes quick finish for appropriations

Republican leaders are aiming for swift completion of the fiscal 2005 appropriations process to avoid any interference next year with Bush's second-term agenda.

November 4, 2004

By Peter Cohn

"Congress will return later this month to finish this current session. I urge members to pass the appropriations bill that remain, showing spending discipline while focusing on our nation's priorities," Bush said Thursday. That will require some rolled-up sleeves as Republican leaders and the White House try to reconcile competing spending priorities with a discretionary spending cap of $821.9 billion -- a level that calls for a near-freeze or cuts in programs other than defense, homeland security and foreign aid.

Buoyed by President Bush's victory and expanded margins in both chambers, the White House and congressional Republican leaders are aiming for swift completion of the fiscal 2005 appropriations process to avoid any interference next year with Bush's second-term agenda.

Republican leaders want to comply, and avoid punting unfinished bills into next year. "I cannot emphasize enough the strong, strong, strong feeling of [House Speaker Dennis] Hastert, [Majority Leader Tom] DeLay, and all of our leaders not to push it until next year," a senior House GOP leadership aide said.

House and Senate appropriators are using the remaining recess time to wrap up negotiations on spending bills as much as possible before Nov. 15, when lawmakers return to Washington for organizational meetings and the lame duck session. Any unresolved issues would be kicked to the full committee and GOP leadership level to be worked out in time for a scheduled pre-Thanksgiving adjournment.

The lame duck session officially will be held Nov. 16-23, and negotiations could occur during the intervening weekend. "Everyone has from Nov. 16 to Nov. 23 to finish their work," a senior Senate GOP aide said.

But the White House also has sought additions for its own priorities, such as NASA and the Millennium Challenge Account initiative for developing nations that take steps to foster democracy.

Aides were optimistic that an omnibus spending bill -- likely attached to the Legislative Branch spending measure -- could be completed, perhaps even with the nettlesome Labor-HHS and VA-HUD appropriations bills included.

That would require a significant retrenchment by Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, on $8 billion added through accounting gimmicks, mostly to those two bills.

There will also be pressure to accede to White House demands on policy issues. The administration has threatened to veto spending bills over provisions such as one in both versions of the Labor-HHS bill that would block new overtime compensation regulations.

Senior aides on the House and Senate Appropriations committee met Wednesday to discuss completing this year's remaining bills, and aides in both chambers said the Labor-HHS and VA-HUD bills, while difficult, were not insurmountable. Trickier to resolve could be the FY05 Energy and Water spending bill, mired in a dispute over funding for a proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.

"That one could still be a CR," a Senate Appropriations Committee aide said.

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